Castellanos v. United States
- Denny Chin
- 1:20-cv-02758
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Castellanos v. United States, Judge Chin transferred Castellanos’s latest sentence challenge to the Second Circuit because he lacked authorization for another filing.
Giovanni Castellanos’s latest request to challenge his remaining conviction and sentence was transferred to the Second Circuit for a decision on filing authorization; the district court did not decide the merits.
What happened
In Castellanos v. United States, Giovanni Castellanos, representing himself, asked the court to vacate or correct his remaining sentence under a federal law allowing such challenges. He had previously filed two similar requests.
Because Castellanos had not obtained permission from the Second Circuit to file another request of this kind, the district court transferred the matter to that court to decide whether he could proceed. The district court did not decide the substance of his new arguments.
Judge Denny Chin closed the district-court action, stating that Castellanos could ask to reopen it if the Second Circuit granted permission. The court also said no certificate allowing an appeal would issue and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
The detailed version
- Castellanos v. United States · No. 1:20-cv-02758
- Denny Chin
- Apr. 7, 2020
Background
Giovanni Castellanos, who was incarcerated and proceeding without a lawyer, filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a procedure for asking a federal court to vacate, set aside, or correct a criminal sentence. He sought relief from his sentence in the underlying criminal case, which was entered on October 31, 2014, and amended on December 10, 2019.
This was Castellanos’s third § 2255 motion. The district court had denied his first motion in 2015, finding that his arguments were barred by his plea agreement’s waiver provision and lacked merit. In 2019, after the Second Circuit granted permission to pursue another motion, the district court granted Castellanos’s request to vacate his conviction on Count Two under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), along with the consecutive 60-month sentence imposed on that count.
Current Motion
Castellanos’s latest motion challenged his remaining count of conviction. Among other arguments, he claimed that his counsel was ineffective for failing to raise a constitutional challenge to his § 924(c) conviction at sentencing.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h), a person must obtain authorization from the appropriate court of appeals before filing a successive § 2255 motion. Castellanos had not obtained that authorization from the Second Circuit.
Ruling
The district court transferred the matter to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit under 28 U.S.C. § 1631 so that the Court of Appeals could decide whether to authorize another successive § 2255 motion. The district court did not decide the merits of Castellanos’s new arguments. The order closed the district-court action, while allowing Castellanos to seek reopening under the civil docket number if the Second Circuit authorized the filing.
Judge Denny Chin also ruled that no certificate of appealability would issue because the motion did not make a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. The court further certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.